Straight on 'til Morning
by narcolepticbadger
Summary: "It's all so new, still, this being together, that they turn in opposite directions to smile at it because they cannot bear to look so boldly at their own happiness." Domestic OQ and Hood-Mills family feels.
1. Straight on 'til Morning

It's dinner at Granny's, and the discovery of milkshakes – too much sugar for anyone this time of night, and Regina promises _just this once_ , though she cannot seem to tire of watching Robin and Roland delight in new things (they must take sweetness where they can find it) – that leads to full bellies and a meandering walk back under streetlights and stars.

The boys pull ahead, skipping over the cracks in the sidewalk (there is a saying about mothers in this world that Regina has never understood) for blocks until Henry bends and _ooofs!_ when Roland tackles into him for a piggyback ride.

They're far enough – not _far_ , but a mindful distance – away that Robin bumps his shoulder into hers, reaches close to claim her hand and swings it between them, and it's all so new, still, this being together, that they turn in opposite directions to smile at it because they cannot bear to look so boldly at their own happiness.

Roland makes pony noises, urging Henry that little bit faster, until his head begins to drop and he quietens, thankfully within sight of the house. Henry bounds up the steps, taking care not to shake Roland loose, and Regina makes to help him with the door, but Robin drags on her hand, stubborn-heeled, until she slows.

"I've got it, Mom," Henry calls from the porch, good-natured but with an edge of the teenage boy smirk that comes more readily every week. "Don't stay out too late."

It's too dark to know, but she imagines him rolling his eyes in their general direction as the door clicks shut behind him.

Robin tugs at her again, gently, walking her back to him until he can catch her at the waist, hands parting to graze against her hip bones and turn her until she is cupped against him, back pressed to the warm expanse of his chest.

They'll only linger a moment – they need to see both boys to bed – but Regina will take this, every second of it, will let it fill the spaces in her that have been lonely too long. This is _theirs_ , hard-fought and maybe never won, and it wouldn't do to let the sweetness of the night pass without one more sip of it.

She follows the tilt of Robin's gaze up to the sky, head resting against the sweep of his collarbone, and tries to put names to what she sees. She was never a good study of constellations, lacking in teachers or patience or cause for it, but she finds the swooping dippers, the belt, two points that might be Castor and Pollux or, just as believably, satellites, and then her knowledge is exhausted.

Robin is quiet, still searching high for things she knows nothing of, and she thinks how strange this all must be for him, how dim the stars, for a man shaped far from light pollution and suburban lawns and, _oh gods_ , her chest tightens with the fear that this place is too pale for him. Too tame.

He is kind, and easy, and he will promise he doesn't regret the curse that forced him here, but some sacrifices, even the willing ones, are too much.

He bends to her neck, taking care, leaving the softest prints of lips and tongue along its slope, and Regina wonders if she is really so transparent, if the beating of her heart is so tell-tale under his mouth.

The question comes thick, no matter how she hides it in nudging him back, in bringing the stars into it again because they are untouchable, and she can be too – she can outlast the guilt, the griefs that may (must) yet come to pass.

"What do you see?"

And he's not looking to the sky at all when he steps around to meet her, hands leaving and finding her again (isn't this how it has always been?), and it's her, it's _her_ fixed in his eyes, in his earnest palms, as he holds her fast to earth and to him and to whatever life they are building and speaks his answer.

"Home."


	2. The Working of Things

Robin, as it turns out, is not the sort of man who's handy around the house.

She hadn't expected it of him, and in the beginning she is simply amused as she watches his endless curiosity about the fusebox and her hairdryer, his careful touch over all things mechanical as if they are horses that need breaking.

Each discovery comes like new love, and Regina falls with him, for him, more incurably each time.

But Robin wants to understand how everything _works_ , wants the answers beyond her explanations and the stilted diagrams in books, and she finds him fiddling out screws and wires from a dozen different places and trying to piece them back together, mouth moving soundlessly with the effort, and, oh, she _loves_ him, but she wonders if this hasn't all gotten a bit out of hand.

Wonders even more when Roland – stretched to the last toe, he can just reach the switchplates – begins flickering the lights on and off madly (the indoor lightning storm of a young god, she imagines) whenever he enters a room, a habit Regina rather suspects he picked up from his father.

It's not the disorder she minds – well, she _does_ , but – she worries about electrocution and house fires and (the deepest fear, buried to the hilt of her) that they will never quite feel at peace in this world, that they will never find they _belong_.

The thought keeps her awake past midnight, past Robin's even snores, and she does nothing but count hours by clock strikes, a sense of endless waiting.

It's his weight leaving the bed, sometime after four too-emphatic bells, that jars Regina out of the daze she can't remember slipping into, and he's gone before she can mumble a protest, and she tries not to miss the hand that never comes to soothe her.

He doesn't return, and, somehow, she sleeps.

…

In the half-light of morning everything is too quiet, and when Regina's eyes clear she follows him, tracking him by the unease in the pit of her stomach.

Coffee grounds spill over the kitchen counter, and Robin sits on the living room floor, face helplessly pressed into the heel of one hand, surrounded by the strewn innards of what had formerly been the mantelpiece clock.

By the looks of it, he had pried his way inside its metal backing – using the wrong screwdriver, she can't help but notice – and picked it apart to the last gear.

"The damned thing wouldn't stop ringing," Robin says muzzily through his fingers. "I thought I could fix it, and then you'd be able to sleep, but – well, you can see what I did to it."

She crosses to him, rubs over the span of his shoulders, the base of his neck, and he eases back, sighing, to lean himself into her legs.

"All this, because you thought the clock was keeping me awake?"

"Wasn't it?"

Regina pauses, works her fingers into his hair while she thinks (he's not wrong, and he is, and perhaps he's been passing sleepless nights by the annoyance of its bells too) and is rewarded with a small groan of pleasure traveling upwards.

"I've been meaning to replace it for years," she says, and it may not be precisely truth, but she cares nothing for a ruined clock and everything for him, this man so preoccupied with the working and fixing of things.

His head rocks against her thigh, his rueful laugh swallowed into a yawn, and when he settles again he tries to grin up at her but can't seem to summon the necessary energy. One side of his mouth lifts, haltingly, and its progression, Regina finds, is intensely kissable.

"An excellent choice, m'lady."

And when Robin starts to shuffle the loose gears into a pile, she drags him to his feet instead, tucking herself under one arm because he is (all for her) cold, and tired, and he's not long in resisting resting a little more of his weight into her as they take on the stairs.

Careful, then, to keep quiet feet past Roland's room, and Henry's further down the hallway, as they stagger-step together, Robin nearly unseating a picture frame from the end table with his loose elbow but catching at it before it topples, and then they're safe behind the door, sighing.

She guides him back to bed and pulls the covers up to his waist, folds herself in beside him (breathes in coffee when he breathes out, heat against her back, and marvels again that anyone can be so _good_ ), and shuts her eyes firmly against the light pressing through the curtains.

They'll lie together until the day breaks true, and then, this once, Regina will let herself be late to the office after seeing the boys breakfasted and off to school.

For Robin, as it turns out, has a great many other skills that she intends to put to good use when he wakes – and, incidentally, so does she.


	3. Contrition

She was buttoning her shirt while Robin combed his fingers through her hair, sorting by the strand, and though she tried not to flinch when his passes pulled hard to the root, he felt her tension and murmured _sorry, sorry_ as if this wasn't her own fault.

He worked methodically, and the touch lulled her – it was almost pleasant, if not for the occasional snags that left them both swearing under-breath – and soon enough Robin held out the small fistful of burrs he had plucked from her hair.

"The hazards of deciding the bedroom was too far, m'lady," he said, too pleased with himself and then contrite, taking her by the hand and pressing over each knuckle with a thumb, and a kiss to follow. "I should have chosen softer ground."

Regina would argue that he hadn't had much say in the _choosing_ , not when the light had touched his face just so and, dizzy, she had reached for his collar, and his belt, before half-knowing what she intended. And he had come down with her, willingly, tongue to her neck and stomach and _there_ before she took him whole, lost and twining against the patch of undergrowth they had fallen to.

Robin kept smoothing through her hair, tucking one unruly piece back and back with more concern than the situation warranted, and Regina thought again how loving him felt like breaking open, boundless, and so she shook herself free, trapped his hand between both of hers, and (meaning it) answered, "Worth it."


	4. Spice

The first snowfall came late that year, nearly two weeks into December, and for once Henry didn't have to wheedle her into spending the afternoon in the kitchen to bake Christmas cookies, as family tradition dictated.

Regina thumbed through her catalogue of recipe cards and pulled the slightly more dog-eared ones that marked her and Henry's favorites, and she was halfway through asking Robin and Roland what they wanted to make before she caught their quietly blank faces - both sets of eyes deep with curiosity - and realized they couldn't begin to tell her.

(She remembered Henry, knee-high and hopelessly cowlicked, holding up recipe after recipe to her and saying, "This one too!" And she had, simply to win another smile from him as she lifted him to the counter to help her pour flour and sugar and molasses into a new bowl.)

She might guess at their tastes, now, learning them slowly as she was - cloying sweetness for Roland, something subtler and darker for Robin - but it didn't seem fair to choose so, to deny them their own discovery of the season and everything that came with it.

Roland leaned close to his father's ear, and in a carrying whisper asked, "What's Christmas cookies?"

"Er…"

Robin looked to her for help, and _there_ was an idea, one that raised a ready smile to her lips while she pulled the rest of the cookie recipes free of their box.

Showing was better than telling, and to do it properly, well, they'd just have to bake them all.

The four of them made a good team, with Robin minding the oven (holding trays out for her to declare done or in need of another two minutes) and washing up while Regina mixed dough and the boys decorated with a sense of gleeful abandon.

Soon the counters were lined with armies of snowmen and reindeer that had been Jackson Pollack-ed with all colors of sprinkles, mounds of snickerdoodles and Mexican wedding cakes, and the silver wrappers of chocolates that Henry was now helping Roland press into the middle of a sheet of peanut butter balls.

It was excessive, Regina knew, but she was swept up in it willingly, the kitchen too full of warmth and laughter to feel anything but light. It was enough to see Roland wide-eyed at this new kind of magic, at the never-ending variety of shapes and flavors before him - and Robin too, though he hid his enthusiasm better, tucked away in one flexible corner of his mouth that had a tendency to betray him when he thought no one was looking.

She had powdered sugar streaked up the backs of her hands and, apparently, across her cheekbone, an oversight that Robin remedied with a soft stroke of his thumb before touching it to his lips, his tongue, and sampling the sweetness there.

When he smiled roguishly at her, Regina rather wished the sugar had clung to a more sensitive part (a lower part) of her than her cheek, unleashing a stream of tantalizing thoughts that were entirely inappropriate for her to be entertaining while there were still children in the room.

"I think that's enough for today," she said, weakly, and was heartened when no one put up much protest.

"If you're going to sneak cookies, at least make sure you close the containers tightly when you're finished."

Henry glanced at the opened tin she held up to him accusingly and shrugged. "Wasn't me."

Regina frowned in thought. If it wasn't Henry… perhaps her cookie thief was rather smaller in stature than she had assumed, one with a charming set of dimples and a mop of unruly curls that really _should_ be trimmed back before he began to resemble a sheepdog - and, it seemed, sticky fingers and a taste for raspberry jam thumbprints.

Caught red-handed, quite literally.

She was tempted to overlook it when, not-so-long before dinner that evening, Roland sidled out of the kitchen with a tell-tale trail of crumbs along his lower lip, but she pulled him gently aside and reminded him of the rules of the house, of asking before taking, until he looked properly abashed even as his tongue sought out the last sweet remnant of his theft at the bottom of his lip.

"By the time Christmas comes you'll be sick of them," she teased, as Roland vehemently shook his head and swore that he could eat cookies every day of the year. He did, however, promise to leave _some_ out for Santa in exchange for other gifts.

Regina laughed. "Well, I'm sure Santa will appreciate your generosity, Roland. You two share quite the sweet tooth, don't you?"

Her words proved truer than even she had thought when, after waking in the late hours of the night to a half-empty bed, she wandered down to the kitchen in search of Robin and discovered that _this_ particular streak of naughtiness, the surreptitious piracy of her best desserts, ran in the family.

"Stealing cookies?" she asked from the doorway, smirking as Robin flinched with a mixture of surprise and guilt. "That's a sure way to get coal in your stocking."

He turned to her, all innocence, and spread his empty hands, refusing to be caught as willingly as his son. "And what evidence have you against me, my love?"

Unrepentant to the last, then, and (she bent to his pretence, letting him win just this _once_ ) she met him halfway when he leaned in to steal a kiss, his hands sliding down and down until she broke with the pleasure of it, shuddering against the arms that held her upright.

He tasted, remarkably, like gingersnaps.


	5. Early

She comes early.

And though Robin has resigned himself to the strange passage of time that seems to plague the inhabitants of Storybrooke – weeks of memories stolen, and Marian returned (so he had thought, once) and then lost and lost and lost – there is nothing to prepare him for this.

Time, or something like it, rushes past him again as Zelena shrieks into labor, impossibly grown from when they had seen her hours before, and he places a call to the loft, fingers clumsy over the buttons while everywhere alarm bells are ringing.

He's grateful when David hums agreement from the other end, taking charge of the boys for the night without a thought, without the litany of questions Robin has long given up hope of answering.

Some jostling of the phone and then Roland is talking too-loud into the receiver so that Robin has to pull back even as the sound lightens his heart.

 _Soon, soon,_ he promises, and Roland is (noisily) mollified, turning away to speak to someone else – Henry, maybe – his interest diverted from fathers and baby sisters before Robin can even wish him goodnight.

It wounds him, how easily Roland takes to change now, how gladly he spends nights away from his father – above all, how much Robin has forced his son to acclimate to when he hardly understands the whole of it himself. His son, so like Marian in ways he will never know, and once more Robin wells with the fear that he has been a poor father, and that _she_ must now suffer likewise.

For he loves them, terribly, down to the root of everything that he is, but mere love is not enough to protect his son from the harms he himself might so unwillingly inflict, nor to guarantee that some stray drop of sorrow will not muddy his instinctive love for her, this unexpected daughter.

He loves her, and fears her, and fears _for_ her, and he feels as though he has failed already.

All three of them are unnaturally quiet as Regina drives to the hospital. Zelena pants in the backseat when contractions grip her, and Regina's hands tense on the steering wheel to the same rhythm while Robin gazes absently through the windshield, eyes tracking over traffic signals and road signs without processing a thing.

In the car, in the elevator, in the hospital room – he finds himself bandied from place to place with a numb, dizzying sense of motion and no consciousness of each transition. He blinks into the fluorescent lighting with surprise as Zelena is laid out, snarling, onto a bed and wonders how long he's been standing there.

It's Regina who marshals everyone into place, and he thinks to smile his gratitude towards her but cannot find the right muscles in his lips, his cheeks. She seems to understand. One hand touches lightly to his back, and it is enough to stabilize him, to bring him back, and he does have a smile for her after all, thin though it may be.

Time speeds oddly again, and Regina appears and disappears from his side to deal with doctors and make calls of her own and bring coffee that neither of them end up drinking.

Belle and Snow rush in and speak of incoming danger, of curses and babies' cries, and it is a simple matter to stake his life firmly between Emma and the child, not decision or duty but a pure, fierce protectiveness that rises in his heart and speaks for him.

And then, after the others retreat and there passes another too-quick eternity of waiting, it is with wonder alone that Robin watches his daughter enter the world.

He takes her into the safety of his arms and just _looks_ , marveling that someone so new could feel already familiar ( _his_ ), remembering how it had been the same with Roland when the midwife handed him over, Marian sinking back into the mattress with relief and tender pride in her eyes for what they had jointly created.

He thinks again that it's like being handed the world, in all its fragility and gravity and curiousness, but this moment, now, belongs to him and her only.

And so Robin traces the curve of her cheek, examines the tiny wrinkles of her knuckles and the ridge of her nose and comes to know her, love unfurling further with each discovery.

Her eyes match his – they could yet change, he thinks, as Roland's did, and with a tug below his heart (the ache deeper than flesh, than mere anatomy, and it will fold him sometimes, still) he suddenly finds himself searching for glimpses of Marian in her, oh gods, and he doesn't know how to stop.

(Will the past always linger there, at the fringes of his mind, and burn him when he passes too near?)

His daughter wriggles in his hold, mouth opening in a quizzical 'o', and Robin surprises himself with a chuckle at the idea that she may be making a similar study of him, and what does she see?

She smacks her lips and warble-cries in the way babes do, and peaceably his ghosts recede, for she bears none of them – this girl, his girl, is every inch herself and no one else, and his heart will burst with the knowledge of it.

He has lost sense of everyone else in the room (in the world) until Regina tentatively approaches, and his throat hitches with joy as he tells her the good news: _a daughter_. She lights at the word, but they are called sharply out of their reverie by the snap of boots against tile that heralds Emma, dark and angular and strikingly unfamiliar as she flings Whale aside and stops, menacingly, on just the other side of the bed.

Robin draws his weapon with unflinching, deadly intent, his whole body steel and shield and sword in one, and Emma barely looks at him. She's gone, with Zelena, blowing out in a burst of few words and grey smoke like a summer storm, leaving the rest untouched.

Regina loosens the sword from his hand – he's forgotten its weight already – and says she must go after them, stop them, whatever evil they portend. They nod to each other, find each other's hands long enough to squeeze, and then Regina is gone and his daughter waits.

The nurses let him hold her long before she begins to fuss – hungry, they say, with a knowing eye – and he gives her over (the parting already shockingly difficult) for nourishment and the necessary tests while he buries himself in birth registration forms and hospital releases, a whole envelope of glossy literature on the care and keeping of newborns.

His focus drifts, balking first at the line where he must write his daughter's name and then at words that hold little meaning for him, the ways of this world still strange to him down to its turnings of phrase and neat rows of letters that make everything identical.

Robin looks to the set of doors through which they took his child and cannot help but feel ill at ease. He does not mistrust the people here, exactly, and he knows Regina would not have left him without safeguards, without some belief in the goodness of the hospital staff, but it is so different to be separate from his daughter in these sterile halls when once Roland had slept his first night within reach of him and Marian both.

He rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes, sighs.

And then comes the _skut_ of mechanical doors and a general commotion, the kind of bustling energy and noise that accompanies men traveling in a pack, and a great booming voice that settles over him with warmth and affection:

"Well, where is she, man? It's a fine thing to come all this way to meet the newest member of our Merry circle and fail to find her after all!"

John heads up the rest of his men with a smile Robin returns easily, thankful that the message had passed to them somehow and they had come.

"Already practicin' her stealth maneuvers, is she?" Will cracks from the back, and they all laugh, and Robin moves forward to clap them on the shoulders and be congratulated in turn, feeling deeply his absence from daily life among their ranks for the first time.

He has carved out his own small place in Storybrooke, amongst these people who were once but stories to him, but there is nothing like the company of one's natural brothers.

When they begin to free themselves of the burdens of crossbows and quivers, leaning them across the seats of waiting room chairs and against walls, he realizes they are, down to a man, heavily armed, and understands that Regina herself must have called them in as a second defense against her sister and the Dark One.

Robin doesn't remark upon the implicit threat – and doesn't ask how Regina got word to them when none have taken to carrying a phone, their camp so isolated from modern conveniences that she once seriously debated whether the use of owls or two tins connected by a string would be the more efficient choice (a joke that Henry had explained to him later) – and they say nothing about the suddenness of the birth that brought them back together again.

"Might we see her, then?" Much asks, shyly, and Robin smiles (with them, always so easy) and speaks to the woman behind the desk about entering the maternity ward. There's too many of them, to be sure, and the men are boisterous even when they speak in their gentlest tones, but the woman eyes the arsenal of weapons ranged around the room and Robin's friendly, pleading look and waves them through.

Rows of cradles with pink and blue decorations are lined behind the window, and Robin doesn't need the help of the name plates to recognize his daughter immediately. They've designated her _Baby Hood_ , which he corrects to _Locksley_ in his head with a twinge of irritation – this world seems intent on misnaming him – that fades, forgotten, at the sight of his men pressing up to the window to get a proper look, elbowing each other and poking at the glass in their delight.

"She's a stunner, Robin," John says with warm sobriety from behind him, resting one large hand on his shoulder. "Be leavin' a trail of lovesick fools behind her sooner than ye know."

"A trail, John?" He cocks a skeptical eyebrow at the older man. "You know I'll teach any child of mine better than that."

"So ye will, so ye will."

"What do we call the little 'un, eh?" a voice further down asks, and the others rumble in agreement, turning to Robin for his word.

John leans down to whisper meaningfully into his ear. "There's a stiff wager runnin' on whether she'll bear the same initials as you and Roland or no."

Robin grins despite himself, knowing well where John would have risked his own coin, and cannot quite chase the teasing out of his voice when he says, loud enough for all to hear, "And how much do you stand to lose if I say she won't, John?"

His friend scowls at being so easily caught out at his own game.

"I'd like to know her a little, first, to better choose a name that suits her."

"Quite right, too," John concedes, softening at the slight acknowledgement that all of this has been too soon, too overwhelming, for Robin to grasp all at once. "Though ye'll need more than a bit o' luck to stop the lads from tryin' to, er, _help_ with the choosing."

And, sure enough, the men are testing prospective names on each other, bartering and arguing and laughing behind backs and over people's heads, the group seemingly equally split between those insisting on names beginning with 'R' and those breaking tradition with everything else.

"Rose? Raven?"

" _Fern_ , you nit."

"River?"

"Willow?"

"Lark, or somesuch. What's the bird with the prettiest song?"

"Goldfinch!"

"They're going to list every tree, flower, and beast in the forest, aren't they?" Robin mutters helplessly to Will, who's observing the chaos with immense satisfaction.

"Aye, and you'd best distract them before they _really_ get going. Don't want the little lady to be stuck with a name like 'Pinecone' before she's had an even chance, d'you?"

The advice comes just as Robin overhears Much suggest, rather seriously, _Bluebell_ , and he hastily interrupts their chatter by wondering aloud, recklessly, who would like to hold the baby first.

A new clamor of excitement begins, and Robin looks askance to the nurses who have been keeping an eye on the scene with bemused concern. It takes some finagling, and chastising the men into quietude, but soon his daughter is being passed, oh-so-gently, from man to man to be admired and cooed over, and Robin is content to watch the love play out.

His children will never want for uncles, for older brothers, and that is a happy (oh, so much more than _happy_ ) thought.

He wishes Roland were here as well, to share in the welcoming of his sister and the deciding of names, but it is late and they have tomorrow – so many tomorrows, and Robin already knows his girl is early-rising like her father where her brother is late, always, dragging his heels, and he has a painful love of them both, his beautiful, wayward children.

She came early, yes, but she was most welcome, and Robin knows what it is to look upon a daughter and a son both and feel no sorrow.


	6. Pretty in Pink

Everyone is quick to comment on the particular blue of Vera's eyes, the match of her father's, and Regina nods with them, smiling faintly, all the while thinking (half affection, half exasperation) that the similarities hardly end there.

Their daughter has learned well from Robin, has practiced her own variety of sleight-of-hand since she could move under her own power, and it's these mildly criminal tendencies she chides Robin for, with a put-upon grumble, when he endeavors to steal the covers away, again, on the nights he thinks she's fallen asleep first.

"You're incorrigible," she tells him, "and you'll make our house a den of thieves."

She has already caught Henry fiddling at his bedroom door with an amateur lockpick set, and Roland has a knack for lifting sweets from their hiding places in the pantry, and Vera… as soon as Vera could toddle around the house, objects had found their ways into her tight little fists, secreted away in romper pockets or in the blanket folds of her crib until liberated by one or more members of the family during their daily sweep for lost things.

"And will you mind it so very much? Living in the company of such thieves?" Robin asks as he disappears a kiss behind her ear and draws it from her anew, from her lips, before listening for her answer and, ever so tactfully, not reminding Regina that she had once collected hearts with the same vigor that Vera collects lipsticks, nicked from the vanity table that Regina would swear was above the toddler's reach.

She shakes her head (she disapproves, really, but there is something winsome about all this gentle thieving still) and lets Robin show her just how clever-fingered he can be, runs her own hand over his chest, around the rim of his heart, with a greedy longing.

Perhaps she is just as incorrigible, after all.

...

Vera (mostly) outgrows her household marauding after a time but never loses her interest in Regina's makeup, often sitting close to watch Regina's daily ritual of creams and mascara and lipstick and finishing powder with something bordering on reverence, and (uncertainly, almost shy in not wanting to be _that_ mother, her mother) Regina indulges the girl's curiosity.

One corner of the vanity begins to amass passionfruit- and watermelon-flavored lip balm and little bottles of neon-bright nail polish and cakes of rouge and eyeshadow rescued from the clearance section of the store for Vera to experiment with. They share the mirror, sometimes elbow to elbow, Vera straining on tiptoe to check if her cheeks are evenly pinked and giggling when Regina tickles her side and brushes excess powder from her eyelids.

Vera likes the bold and the glossy - everything Regina's makeup is _not_ \- and though Regina dutifully (and, in truth, with unexpected pleasure) welcomes the fruity kisses and electric-blue manicures pressed upon her, it is Robin and the boys that Vera most prefers to devote her attentions to.

"Mommy's already pretty," she explains the first time, tugging her father upstairs and into his proper place.

"That she is," Robin agrees, and Regina catches his wink into the mirror from her post in the doorway. "What can you do for an old bear like me, Vera? Can I be half as beautiful as my girls?"

Their daughter frowns thoughtfully, fingers hesitant until she finds the palette she wants. "This might help."

Robin submits himself gladly to all of it, and Regina manages not to laugh outright when he emerges with a face that looks finger-painted, broad strokes of color over eyes and cheeks and lips.

"You look… lovely," she says, finally, both of them near breaking with held-in laughter.

Robin lands a thick kiss on her forehead, a red brand, and she plays at scowling at the feel of it.

"I think we best wait a while before entrusting her with the, mmm, more delicate tools of the trade," she whispers low to him as she traces the contour of one cheekbone, pulling away her bright-stained fingertip with a smirk.

"Perhaps Hook can give her a few lessons with his eyeliner pencil," he suggests, mischievous to the core, and she pushes him away lightly before he can mark another kiss on her.

...

It becomes something of a habit, Vera caking makeup onto anyone who will sit for her, and Regina grows used to coming home from long hours at the office to find that Henry has conceded to a little nail polish (carefully removed before he ever leaves the house, of course) or Little John has had beard and hair plaited and sports more color in his cheeks than his naturally ruddy complexion grants.

Roland, boy of a certain age that he is, spurns it all, and that becomes a habit too, a game: Vera and whoever is scheduled to watch her and her brother that day (those days Henry has extracurriculars and someone needs to bridge the gap between last school bell and the end of Robin and Regina's shifts) chasing Roland with the threat of powder brushes and lip gloss until Regina reminds them, less sternly than she ought, that there is no running in the house except in times of mortal peril.

(And, though Roland protests, makeup and little sisters don't _quite_ fall into that category.)

Vera's favorite of these babysitters - confoundingly - is _Leroy_ , an oddity Regina could only hypothesize was a lingering connection to the weeks (she remembers that absence, that leaving, with a vague sense of shame, with reluctance) Vera and Roland had spent in the care of the fairies while the rest had journeyed to the Underworld. Details of that time remain murky, told in fits and snippets by a five-year-old who struggled to pronounce the heavy consonants in 'Astrid' and through the familiarity Vera finds in Leroy, and the gruff affection he returns.

Vera had asked for him by name from the earliest days of stringing words together, and Regina had hesitated, and Leroy had shuffled uncomfortably upon her asking him to watch the kids on a Saturday evening and had ultimately brought Astrid with him to ease everyone's discomfort. And Astrid, with her effortless warmth, had played princess with Vera while Leroy and Roland had built castles out of legos around them, and it all was… _right_ , somehow, that Leroy was so softened around children, so ready to play pirate or beast-on-all-fours or drink from imaginary tea cups even as he resisted the touch of Vera's makeup brushes as vehemently as Roland did.

Astrid becomes less and less of a fixture in time, but Leroy stays, and the mutual animosity he and Regina had shared for so many years fades into snarking that's as quick-draw as ever but relatively harmless in its bite.

(It would have felt wrong, after all, to be _complete_ friends with the history that lays strewn behind them.)

And so it's Leroy who Regina calls one Friday, when what should be a short, midday meeting turns into a budget war and Regina realizes she won't be getting out in time to pick Vera and Roland up from school as she had promised.

Leroy answers with his customary grumble, and they negotiate that Regina will make it out of the office by 5:30, and it's routine, easy, to thank him and hear him grunt in response and know that everything will fall precisely into place that afternoon.

The war quietens before the clock strikes five, the board suddenly reminded, perhaps, that it's Friday and no great trouble to set their disagreements aside for the weekend, and Regina returns home early, calls out to Leroy and the kids and gets a muffled _just a minute_ in response as she passes Vera's room on the way to her own, ready to exchange her dress and heels for something more casual.

A quick movement at the crack of Vera's door, suddenly blocking out its shaft of light, and a giggle has Regina pausing, frowning in question, and she reverses slightly to knock two knuckles against the wood. The door swings inward at the contact, and as it opens Regina locks eyes with Leroy as he looks up from the floor, both of them powerfully surprised by the appearance of the other.

Leroy is a princess.

Leroy is a _princess_ , Regina's mind stutters out again, paralyzed into repeating the thought on a loop, and, oh, there are so many things she could say, so much laughter crowding her throat, and yet none of it comes out, she can only gape, because _Leroy is a princess_ \- and so he is.

From the bedazzled tiara sitting too-small on his head to his rainbow-spectrum polished fingernails to his face - his ridiculously made-up, painted-within-an-inch-of-its-life _face_ , Leroy has committed to playing princess, to indulging Vera's whims, harder than anyone Regina has ever seen.

And a sly voice speaks up from the back of her mind, wondering if this is the first time Leroy has dressed up for her daughter or merely the first time she's come home too early for him to scrub himself clean afterwards.

"Don't say it, sister," he grits out after an interminable pause, unable to fully look at her as Vera continues to dust him with colored powders, and Regina's jaw unsticks at last, prepares to deliver the perfect cutting phrase.

What comes out is a quiet "Would you like to stay for dinner?" that, again, takes them both by surprise.

Leroy squints at her as best he can from his position, earning an emphatic _hold still_ from Vera, to which he rolls his eyes and says, uncertainly, gruffly, to both of them, "Okay."

Regina smiles, the matter settled (and _peacefully_ ), and half-turns from her daughter's room before she realizes she's not quite finished, her invitation to him incomplete without this final note on what family dinners with the Hood-Mills do and do not entail.

"It'll be casual. No need to wear makeup," she says over her shoulder, walking away before Leroy can respond with anything more than a low growl that she suspects just _might_ be his version of a laugh.


	7. Blooming Most Recklessly

AN:For the OQ Valentine's exchange. Title from Rainier Maria Rilke, and subheadings adapted from the poem 'i like my body when it is with your' by ee cummings.

* * *

 _i. Storybrooke – and possibly i like the thrill_

Regina caught the arrow halfway down its shaft, feeling the burn of its momentum across her palm like a brand before it stilled, and the thrill of side-stepping what might have been her end traveled down her arm to breast to heart, all quickening to remind her what it was to feel like _this_.

Something within her coiled as the man came circling, she closing with him in perfect time as though – unknown to her, yet idling in the space just beyond her fingertips, like a dream once-remembered – they had met in this dance a time or two before.

He offered his hand, an invitation, and she relinquished only the arrow (not an inch of herself) to his grasping, and a look that spoke _catch me if you can_ with all the challenge in her.

* * *

 _ii. Before the dark curse – muscles better and nerves more_

She kept a set of commoner's clothes – procured by a well-bribed stablehand – hidden inside her mattress just for nights like this: a cold, halved moon, and a wind stirring restless from the west, and the arrival of a travelling market that raised its stalls along the outskirts of the village but once a year, forbidden to her by the word of her mother.

But the night and its moon-touched wonders _called_ to Regina, and so she dressed as quickly as caution would allow in the dark and slipped down the tree outside her window like a common thief, bridling Rocinante and kicking onto his back and away before she could think better on it.

The market became truly alive in the deep of night, lit by bobbing paper lanterns and leading her to its center through labyrinthine passages of silks and spells and perfumes and people she could never put a name to. Taking care to stay hidden in the folds of her cloak, Regina pressed on, following the trail of her restlessness as if it might find her freedom, as if she might _buy_ it, here where half the world seemed spread out before her in all its possibility.

She slowed to skim her hand over the back of something leather-bound, a jar of dragon scales, a display of immaculately arranged fruits that the merchant promised would sweeten her life with a single taste, and everything was a temptation though she shook her head demurely at each turn, knowing the snares that lay open to those who were penniless but desperate to make a deal.

It was the last stall that made her pause, understated as it was, with its decorations of flowers blown from glass, each more delicate and desirable than its neighbor. She reached a finger to examine the edge of a rose petal, astonishingly red, only to recoil when a voice lashed at her with, "You have coin enough to pay for that, do you, girl?"

Regina lowered her eyes and let herself be shooed away, the sights and sounds of the market kaleidoscoping around her as she wove vaguely in the direction of home, all at once tired to the bone and longing for the familiar comforts of Rocinante and her bed.

The hand at her back caught her off-guard, gently but firmly settling above her elbow and guiding her backwards to meet the solid warmth of a body. She had barely cried out when the man – young, like her, and steady – spoke to calm her, saying, "I didn't mean to frighten you. But I couldn't stand by and let one so lovely leave the market empty-handed."

Something cool was pressed into her palm, and abruptly the support behind her was gone – she shivered in want at its sudden absence – lost to the crowd that moved around her with an occasional _tut_ at the way she was halting traffic in every direction by standing still.

She was left holding one of the glass flowers she had been so taken by, a finely detailed sprig of apple blossoms that she had failed to notice at the stall itself but, now, immediately revealed itself as her favorite of the collection.

She should be alarmed, she supposed, that someone had been watching her – had read her desires so cleanly despite her efforts at concealment – but it was curiosity that claimed her and drove her onward in blind pursuit of the man who had _known_ her so easily.

Regina chose a direction by instinct, twisting and pushing through people and half-tripping over her own feet as she fought to the edges of the market, unsure what it even was she was searching for. She found herself, at last, freed of the crush of the masses and standing before the edges of the southern forest, grounds far beyond what her mother would consider appropriate for a woman of her breeding.

She hesitated, swaying on some invisible precipice between worlds, as the wind picked up her skirts and flung them forward, to the trees.

She had broken the rules as soon as she had stepped into these clothes, had struck straight for everything forbidden to her, and this – what was one more act of defiance when it felt like _freedom_ , when she might discover what manner of man stole flowers for commoner's daughters and a life unweighted by royal robes and expectations she had no hope of fulfilling?

She was close enough to touch the trees now, half under their protection with no memory of moving her feet, wondering if she could, if _this_ was what had called her into the night…

But, quicker than a heartbeat, the moon emerged from behind the clouds to peer down on her with its stark clarity again, and the forest seemed frightening instead of freeing, startling her from its hold with the too-near cry of a fox that sounded nothing but a warning.

She fled, ashamed equally of her cowardice and of the recklessness, the aching _want_ , that kept turning her head back towards the trees as she ran.

The ride home was long, silent except for Rocinante's rhythmic huffs and the tick of her heart, rabbit-quick, resounding in her ears.

She spun the apple blossoms between forefinger and thumb, admiring the way they burned blood-rich when the moonlight caught them just so, and knew she ought to crush the gift under her heel – she had dared enough for one night, and if mother found it, and guessed…

But she could not bear to destroy something so rare, so lovingly crafted, and so she tucked the flower under the rough linen of her shirt for safekeeping, letting it ride flush against her heart though its touch raised goosebumps all the way to her throat.

Strange to have something so perfectly _hers_ , unknown to all others, and she delighted in having something more than her paltry secrets (her heart) to guard – now too the memory of a stranger, warm of breath and body, who had taken her hand and granted her such small kindnesses as she had thought, once, only existed in storybooks.

And here, thick in the shadows of a night where nothing seemed impossible, Regina let herself imagine they might meet again under a similar moon, her carrying flowers and he a song of lovers and nothing more to be asked.

(For she might brave the wilds of the southern forest, and a mother's wrath, if it meant that she might know him, too.)

* * *

 _iii. The Missing Year – so quite a new thing_

This winter had been particularly unforgiving, made all the worse by the way both snow and the uncertain-but-impending threat of the Witch kept them confined to the castle far longer than was healthy – even those on good terms with each other were beginning to chafe at the too-close quarters, and, far more worryingly, the food stores were dwindling at a rate that would see them starved well before spring.

Regina had retreated further into herself, into the meager refuge of her rooms, with every new sign of disaster, attending the council meetings and functions required of her and not a whit more. It was unbearable to be surrounded by the same fools day in and day out, by the half-spoken fears that dogged them all and the _looks_ , that strain of expectation in the air that she might do something more to save them, as if she could tame the weather and conjure feasts of food and make the Witch reveal herself with a simple twitch of her nose.

She had never asked for this, the responsibility of caring for a kingdom she wasn't even sure was hers, and yet she knew she held the same expectation for herself – that she might do more (do _all_ , despite the price) to see them through this mess.

The thief caught her one afternoon, solidly planting himself in a doorway before she could escape through it and murmuring so she alone could hear, "Milady, I'm concerned –"

" _Concerned_?" she echoed, tauntingly. "Why, how utterly helpful to know you're concerned about things. And here the rest of us were _delighted_ by the report Granny just gave us about the state of the larders."

Robin frowned in confusion. "No, I didn't mean that. I'm concerned about _you_ , milady."

That was enough to snap through the last of her restraint. "Then you're simply wasting your time."

She felt a warm tendril of satisfaction in her belly at, finally, being able to strike at him and seeing the answering hurt in his eyes – and it might have troubled her, once, this return to anger (how dangerous, how _good_ it felt), but that time, and that woman she might have been, had long been put to rest.

"However little of it we may have left," she finished, letting the words twist viciously in the space between them, and when she stepped around the thief, pushed hard past his shoulder, he made no move to stop her.

At last – three months or more since Yule, she thought, though her reckoning of time had faltered – the snow receded and the skies seemed clear enough of danger to risk venturing outside of castle grounds. Parties of volunteers, the thief and his men forefront among them, dispersed in all directions with orders to bring back news, and fresh game, and any portents they might find of better days to come.

Regina paced a thin line from window to window as four days stretched to five and wondered if she should have gone with them to offer what protection she could from the elements (or worse) – wondered, too, if she had sent them all to early deaths, to the heart of some terrible peril, as the rest were left waiting for hope that would never arrive.

But slowly the parties began to return, and, with them, incoming streams of fish and small game, grain traded from a farmer three days' journey away, even a small comb of honey unearthed from an abandoned hive – and, best of all, talk of sunshine and tiny buds on the trees and a land ready to lay winter to rest.

Robin's group was the last to return, and the most welcomed for the way they paraded in with racks of venison and boar over their shoulders, clutches of raspberries that had somehow thrived under the frost, and John's booming voice announcing, "Breathe in spring, my friends!"

It was agreed they had gathered enough food to support a minor feast that night without compromising the larders further, all knowing they needed the cheer of a celebration even if it was too early to fully mark the rites of spring.

When the hour came, Regina stood stiffly in a corner, content to watch over the delight of the others as they ate and laughed and to allow the tension her shoulders had been carrying for months ease just a fraction.

Robin, his boy at his side, was making a slow pilgrimage around the room, stopping and chatting and charming each person they came upon, evidenced by the smiles left in their wake and the snippets of happy conversation Regina could hear above the crowd. Robin, with his own manner of magic, seemed to have gifts for everyone, even if it was just to tell Snow of all the birds they had spotted, or present Belle with a new folio of papers to read and catalogue, found forgotten in someone's barn.

For a moment distracted by Granny haranguing her about getting a piece of her famed raspberry pie before it disappeared from the banquet table, Regina realized too late that father and son had purposefully wended their way to...her.

She couldn't quite bring herself to flee, not with Roland beaming at her so in anticipation, and his father trailing a step behind, more reserved in his joy but smiling nonetheless.

"Milady," they greeted together, the picture of courtly respectability for all they ( _he_ ) continued to abuse her proper title, and Regina had to stifle a chuckle when Roland nearly toppled over from the lowness of his bow.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself, gentlemen," she acknowledged in turn, softening what might have been her natural response for Roland – for him she could play along, and (then again) perhaps for the thief too, to make amends for the animosity their last meeting.

Though why she cared for how he might look on her now, she did not dare to ponder.

"Oh, yes," Roland said with complete seriousness, eyes wide with a child's awe, "'s wunnerful."

He steered the conversation then, waxing about the decorations, the fine clothes everyone had dug out of storage for the occasion, the honeyed cake Granny had apparently made just for him, but slowly the conversation lulled, all parties growing shy, and Regina looked to Robin in question. They had been the ones to approach her, after all.

He cleared his throat softly. "It's customary to crown a Queen of May with the first flowers of the season, as you know."

She raised an eyebrow at that, knowing any calendar they consulted would show them falling quite short of May.

"A mite early, perhaps," Robin conceded with a bob of his head, "but Roland here determined that we already had a queen on hand, and so…"

He nudged Roland forward, what must have been their agreed-upon signal for him to present the crown – a fragrant circlet of lilies of the valley, their delicate heads bound together with such skill (such care) as she had rarely seen before – for her approval. "If you would do us the honor."

She hardly knew where to look, caught as she was between puzzlement and the foolish wrench her heart gave at being offered such a gift.

It was tradition, only tradition, and a boy's sense of propriety (a queen is a queen is a queen) that had led to this gesture, and yet – half-chancing a look at Robin and seeing the softness in his eyes, as if he gave with the entirety of his soul – it seemed like something more.

"The honor is mine," she said after such a silence that Roland's smile had begun to wobble, and meant it.

She bent, resting on one knee so that Roland might reach her head, but it was the thief himself who crowned her, a thing she knew purely from touch, from the way his fingers eased through her hair before settling the flowers, mindful of where it might tangle or pull against her scalp and soothing it all just so.

It was a liberty she caught her breath at, how he treated her as his familiar – as dearly as a lover, some might say – and suddenly she was grateful her face was turned from his, so that he might not read too far into the comfort, the _pleasure_ , his attentions brought her.

"What say you, Roland? Is our queen properly adorned now?"

Roland squinted thoughtfully as she straightened, accepting the hand Robin had extended to help her balance. "Pretty!"

"Pretty," the father affirmed, looking on her as something of a wonder himself, and any sharp word Regina would have had for his cheek on another night died in her throat. He had not yet released her hand – nor she his, though this was a detail filed away in the darkest reaches of her heart, meant to be considered only in the hours when sleep eluded her – and, even now, he persisted, gently pressing her hand with the whole of his own as if to reassure her _all will be well, now._

 _All will be well._

(And, oh, to believe such a thing was to stare into the sun too long – blinding and senseless and, above all, irresistible, and so she believed.)

It was Roland who broke the moment, to the relief of them both, for they were close to embarrassing themselves in full view of the court. Roland insisted on being the one to show her the veritable horde of pies Granny had managed to produce, on both of them tasting the early raspberries, and she let him lead her on, yielding to his excited chatter and the general merriment around them and allowing the burden of responsibility to fall from her shoulders, if only for one night.

And through it all, like the tart-sweet of raspberry filling under her tongue, Regina felt a newly familiar presence at her back, a second shadow – and one she welcomed, bewildered though she was at the tenderness of her own feelings and knowing the light of the coming day would harden her towards him again.

Before the light, however, she could confess: she coveted something of him, too.

* * *

 _iv. Camelot – which I will again and again and again kiss_

Robin was fine, assuredly whole under her touch (her hands wandered to that spot, again and again, of their own accord, a new ritual to their lovemaking that she hated herself for) though she had seen him waver at the brittle boundary between life and death.

She had caught his blood in her own two hands.

Robin was fine, and yet Regina could not fight the compulsion to _protect_ him in what small ways she could, finding every excuse to keep him by her side through the daily cycle of meetings and meals and quiet hours spent in their quarters.

And, above all, refusing to speak of what she had almost lost, of the helpless worry that consumed her every time one of Arthur's men passed too close, or something moved silver-quick in the periphery of her vision. She'd nearly incinerated a sparrow as it winged through the dining hall – twice.

Robin, ever-patient, never let on that he knew exactly what she was doing, though she read his understanding in the way he had softened his kisses, how he was quicker to take her hand and run his thumb between the ridges of her knuckles in his own soothing rhythm.

Quicker to tap out a code against the pulse of her wrist, too, when they were caught in a place they couldn't speak openly, and she knew his touches there intimately now – the agile patterns of _You okay?_ and _Steady, love_ and _Fear he may talk us to death. Exit strategy?_

He did it now as Arthur droned on about some long-ago tournament to the delight of Charming and Snow, and she had to bend her head to concentrate, the pattern repeating a second time, and a third, before she could parse the message clearly: _Penny for your thoughts?_

Regina grimaced, wondering how he expected her to answer when they were already reduced to makeshift morse code, and tapped back a curt _Later_. She saw him bite his lip against laughter at that, knew that she had likely fumbled the word (she had never taken to this method of communication as easily as him) and let herself sink further into her mood.

They all felt constrained by the castle walls, by their status as guests – she knew this – but lately the sense of captivity had been casting its hooks more deeply into her, like some slow-growing strain of claustrophobia.

Luckily, Arthur's monologue was soon disrupted by preparations for dinner, and they were able to make their excuses, Robin unhurriedly but deliberately leading her away from the others and, to her great relief, _outside_.

The sky was just beginning to bruise into dusk, and they walked, hand in hand, in silence around the courtyard. Even here they were under the watchful – if unfailingly polite – eyes of the the royal guard and half the court, and this pricked at Regina though she had no great secrets to keep.

"So," Robin prompted as he slowed his step further, his hip brushing against hers. "I believe a fair exchange is in order: my coin for your words, and may I say, as ever, _I_ am getting the better end of the deal."

"I… I just needed some fresh air."

She expected Robin to sigh at her non-answer – he had every right to – but he merely hummed in agreement, thoughtfully glancing to the sky, and loosed his hold on her hand to slip his arm around her waist, drawing her nearer.

They had dwelt too long in contemplation of late, she feared, and yet action – honesty – seemed utterly beyond her. She wasn't even sure what she should be confessing when Robin already knew the whole of it, though she supposed he would argue it was best to lay everything out in the open and face it head-on, together.

"I should change for dinner," Regina said by way of extricating herself from the silence, easy though it was, easy though it always was between them.

Robin ran an eye down the line of her neck, let his fingers tighten against the velvet in the dip of her back as he groaned, torturously deep-throated, in want. "You look lovely."

"I should change," she insisted, and it was true enough that the customs of court were, still, embedded deep in her muscles even if they doubled as a useful distraction at times.

"I offer my services to you, milady, should you need, ah, _assistance_ with the intricacy of these," he said, all playful calculation, as he traced the hook-and-eyes running down the back of her dress. "Your most humble servant."

"And if I accept, we'll both miss dinner," she teased, though, _gods_ , she was tempted to let him have his way, and take him in turn, just to chase the boyish pout from his lips. It wasn't fair, that he could charm her so – that he could _whet_ her so.

"Go, I won't be long," she said, and he nodded, taking care to kiss her temple before he released her.

She returned to their quarters, breathing deeply as she thumbed through her wardrobe, eventually settling on blue silk a few shades darker than Robin's eyes. She was unpinning her hair when a soft knock at the door interrupted her, and Robin stepped through a moment later, passing a small bundle of peonies and iris from hand to hand and looking altogether too pleased with himself.

"Which royal garden did you steal those from, and how much trouble will you be in when they find out?" she asked, laughingly, of her thief.

"What nature gives us freely can be stolen by no man, milady," he returned, biting his lip to smother a laugh of his own.

Oh, they were definitely, _definitely_ stolen, then – and Regina was all the more glad for it.

"I thought they might bring a little life into this room," he said, serious again, as she conjured a vase to hold them in, "keep some of the clouds at bay."

There was something in the tone of his voice, a certain soft cadence, that told Regina he had needed them – this reminder of a world outside, and freedom – as much as she, and she cursed herself for not seeing it before.

(They missed dinner after all, too busy exploring the untold inches of each other's bodies, the boundaries of their pleasure, and for the first time in weeks she wasn't afraid he would fall to blood and ash under her hands.)

She too found the corner of the gardens just out of sight of the guards and took what had been given to them freely, delighting Robin when she sidled back to their room to present him with a bouquet of his own.

"What thief comes so boldly before me?" he asked, circling around her.

She halted him with a kiss, and a single fervent word: "Yours."

* * *

 _v. Operation Mongoose – your body and its bones, and the trembling_

Robin's thighs ached from holding his crouch as the minutes slid by, begging to reposition his weight, but all he needed was one half-competent guard to look down at the wrong moment, glimpse movement, and loose an arrow into his back before he ever got near the locked chest that held his prize.

And so he waited. Waited until his legs deadened and painfully awoke into pins-and-needles and quietened again, until he was sure the last footsteps of the watch had faded enough for him to chance a rush and escape.

His muscles were primed, and he counted off the seconds as he unfolded and skitter-ran to the chest ( _two_ ), knelt ( _five_ ), and reached for the lock, only for his count to be pulled up short at _six_ as his hand found the sharp spine of a flower – a thistle – nestled in the keyhole where his hook pick should fit.

Puzzled, Robin wrested it free, glad for the protection of his gloves, and tried the lid of the chest itself and found that it lifted easily, having been left unlocked. And completely empty.

He swore under his breath, wondering who else had discovered this oversight in the Queen's security and learned to exploit it (and _how_ ). A soft rattle in the distance, just enough to prick at his ears, reminded him of the guard and he hastily made to move, at the last second plucking up the thistle stem and poking it through the buttonhole of his collar as if he might wring answers from it later.

John and Will sat sentinel at the near edge of the forest, watching for his return, and it was Will who frowned at his approach, no doubt noticing that he carried nothing with him.

"What, Robin, no luck?"

"The guards do seem to be out in force tonight," John reminded the younger man with a hint of reproach, to which Will scowled.

"Worse than no luck, I'm afraid." Robin pulled the thistle free, wincing as it caught against his skin, and held it up for their inspection. "If this is any indication, I believe we've run straight up against a new rival."

"A thistle? What do you suppose it means?"

Robin sighed, and pressed his thumb to one of the spines until it drew a line of blood. "Warning."

In troubled silence they began their trek back to camp, and it was only after they had passed the first outpost (raising their hands to Alan in greeting as he stood lookout) that Robin realized he was still carrying the thistle. Even then he found himself tucking it into a pocket instead of discarding it underfoot, though he could not quite say why.

Their rival proved himself formidable indeed, endlessly clever and elusive, and Robin found himself stymied at every turn, sneaking into manors and carriages and the castle for promised treasure and being rewarded only with a growing collection of thistles.

(And he did collect them, every one, until his pockets had filled several times over.)

It was impossible for a thief to be so prepared, to leave so little trace, and yet after months of frustration Robin knew nothing further of his rival than his calling cards, which indicated nothing more than a casual interest in horticulture and a damnable sense of humor about the whole thing.

Once, risking exposure himself, he thought he caught the barest glimpse of someone fleeing the castle ahead of him: a curtain of dark hair, and a wind-blown cloak silhouetting a woman's curves, and that was enough to embolden him again.

Later he discovered the poster in the woods, memorizing the architecture of a woman's face and the sounds of her name – _Regina_ – and thinking that she might well be the one. And then he _knew_ it, when fate dealt them a hand together, at last, and they ran into each other (quite literally) on the next job.

Robin had offered a hand to help her up, urging "Quickly now, they mustn't catch you," and she had refused him without a word, fleeing, and so like a slender touch-me-not ready to spit and strike if one dared to reach for her.

In time, in slow breaching of each other's walls, they came to work together – or, well, to needle each other in a slightly friendlier manner. He liked when she joined him on hunts, the intensity and ease with which she wielded knife and bow, and she tolerated him to watch her back on jobs that demanded two sets of hands.

She had stopped leaving thistles for him to unearth, perhaps imagining she had pricked him enough to keep him at bay in all the ways that truly mattered, and if she noticed the one he persisted in wearing through his buttonhole, just under the pulse in his throat, she never acknowledged it.

They were staking out the east road in anticipation of a shipment of sea silk into town, though their watchfulness had devolved mostly to idling in the summer heat as hours passed with no sign of the rumored caravan.

Regina watched lines of sweat run down Robin's neck, drawn to the way they disappeared under the line of his shirt, then snapped her attention back to the road, embarrassed by her interest. It was not the first time she had let her eyes wander to the thistle he kept at his top button, but today she was bored, and so its presence irked her more than usual.

"Why do you wear that?" she asked, and Robin flinched at the sudden break in silence, likely doubly surprised because she so rarely was the one to seek conversation with him.

He followed her sightline to his collar and she sniffed, looking away with feigned disinterest. "It can't be pleasant."

He frowned a bit, as if he had never actually considered the question before. "Well...out of habit, I suppose. I've grown accustomed to having it with me."

 _Foolish_ , she thought, letting a charged silence descend between them again and feeling the weight of his eyes on her, lingering in a way that made her grit her teeth.

Naturally the caravan appeared while they were both distracted, brooding, and their ambush – spectacularly mistimed – fell apart almost as soon as they mounted it. The caravan's escorts lost not a moment in wheeling around to give chase, and all of Regina's senses narrowed to mere survival in the panic of escaping.

Robin had pushed her ahead of him and she had taken flight, putting enough distance between herself and their pursuers to kick up into the safety of a tree unseen. Robin, struggling to follow her trail through the undergrowth, passed beneath her full seconds later, his head darting left and right as he tried to locate her.

And, in a not-so-far-gone lifetime, Regina might have thrown him, thrown _anyone_ , to the wolves if it meant sparing herself, but before she could think she was hissing down to him and extending her hand, helping him grapple his way up next to her before the guards caught sight of them both.

They were pressed close, each trying to muffle their breathing against the shoulder of the other, all hands fisted into each other's clothes to maintain a precarious balance as the escorts crashed into the clearing a little ways below them.

By sheer luck, or fate, they were not discovered, though they were stuck motionless for a good hour before they trusted that the caravan had given up its search and continued on. Robin murmured something about saving his life, and she barked at him to stop speaking nonsense, pushing out of his arms and stumbling from the tree before he could stop her.

She was relieved when he didn't try (and he could only ever try) to follow her home.

But he came to her a few days later, finding her along the traplines they had set together – worked together – and (so like him) wearing a new bloom through his buttonhole and swinging a mess of foxglove and primrose and tulips at his side that he lay down like an apology (a promise) between them.

"There's a language to flowers, you know," she told him, fingering the soft curve of a tulip and letting her eyes slowly rise to his.

"Oh?" Robin said, and she could see he was playing the fool, pretending innocence. "And what do these tell you?"

It was not until he led her to a thicket of bluebells, whispering its secrets to her as he laid her down, kneeling over her in prayer as they worshipped the ground with their bodies, that Regina finally gave him her answer.

* * *

 _i-ii. Storybrooke – of under me you so quite new_

It was not what she had ever imagined her life could be: quiet, and warm, as she finished annotating the latest draft of the town budget and half-listened to Robin helping Roland read through all the valentines he had received at school. Henry snagged a chocolate from the pile on his way back to his room, promising he was studying for the biology test and not just reading comic books, and all of it was so easy, the rhythm so natural, that Regina could only marvel at all the goodness that had found her.

Robin returned to the kitchen table after seeing the boys to bed, joining her in companionable silence – _I like keeping you company_ – as he broke into a box of candy hearts and began absently sorting them into neat little rows by color, occasionally holding the more incomprehensible messages out to her to translate.

(She too had kept rows of hearts, once, so carefully compiled, and shivered to think on it, for what little good it did to regret her evils now when there were no more amends to be made.)

Robin held another heart to her in question, and she read, her voice rising in bemusement of her own as she wondered what was so difficult to grasp about this one. "Kiss me?"

"Don't mind if I do."

Robin had already crossed to her, eyes alight at how easily, how willingly, she had fallen for his ruse, and she opened herself to him, asking for all he might give.

She might have boasted of walking away unscathed (pride and head and heart intact) when they had first met, here, but the truth was his arrow had never missed its intended mark.

And, well, words really were rather overrated.


End file.
